Brewbasereviews.com > BrewBase Mobile > Award of Merit 2012
The BrewBase™ Award of Merit is given to the elite, mostly
highly admired of newer beers in all classes. To qualify for this
award, the label must first receive a perfect 5.0 or 5-bottle rating by
the General Editor who compiles ratings from our expert panel. All
"Brewbase Fives" are then presented to the original panel and a second
panel for consideration in the A.M. award. A voting majority of 75% or
higher is required from both panels. Very few make the cut as the most
elite, unique, or refined of available labels. The award is limited to
labels new to our tastings and must meet all criteria for inclusion in
our reviews. Only the highest achievements in the brewing arts will
receive this award.
Our Award of Merit is intended to acknowledge, praise, and honor
breweries for truly superior, distinguished work in brewing beer and
serve as our highest recommendation for our many thousands of readers.
The A.M. is an award used worldwide by many organizations to honor
distinguished members, alumni, local chapters, new products, films,
student projects, and even notable dogs, horses, artwork, and flowers. Beer
as liquid art and the work of many skilled brewers with ingredients
assembled from hundreds of similar experts around the world surely
deserves an award of this nature.
The BrewBase™
Legends award is given to established, market-mature, older labels of
similar stellar, worldclass quality - such as Orval, Duvel, Sierra
Nevada Pale Ale, and Pilsner Urquell. An Award of Merit or Brewbase
Fives winner may be considered for Legends status after 10 or more
years on the market. BrewBase™ Award of Merit and Legends winners become our leading benchmarks or style standards when conducting future evaluations.
Our Award of Merit honorees so far for 2012 are the following:
J.W. Lees Harvest Ale Matured in Port Casks 2008
RATING: 5.0 (Award of Merit 2012)
Manchester, England
Now
in March 2012, these mini 9.3 oz. bottles of either Port-aged or
Calvados-aged ale are $10.99 or more than a dollar an ounce. ABV is a
bold 11.5% as it pours bright golden-amber with a small tan head. The
barrel flavors are so smooth and subtle that the caramel notes are like
buttery candy. Reviewers
here said "CANDYLICIOUS...a real revelation...can someone make this
stuff in the US and for less money? Please!" and "This is brew to give
to your wine-snob friends who think ale is easy to analyze, simple, and
not worth their time...this is elite ale, rich yet smooth...it makes my
month in ale drinking". Here is Haute couture of the liquid world, so
dazzling and with only the mere form of things with similar colors and
names. This ale is not an ale when Lees put their magic all through and
around it. It is a thoroughly different creature, one so silky and
glorious. It's elaborate layered notes are accessible to beer fans of
all levels of experience. It impresses all and leaves nothing to
want...except more. The highest pinnacle, peak of the brewing arts.
Award of Merit 2012.
Anchor Brekle's Brown All Malt Single Hop Ale
RATING: 5.0 (A.M. 2012)
San Francisco, California
This
unique formula is a tribute by Mark Carpenter to their first Brewmaster
Gottlieb Breckle (1871-1888). It was created in 2010, first bottled in
2011. From the glued-on collar sermon I took away "complexity without
heaviness". It pours reddish-brown, some haze, and large beige head.
Nose is malty, almost of a breakfast cereal toastiness. Citra is the
one chosen hop. Munich, 2-row, and caramel are the blended malts. It is
citrus-rich and yet malty rich in the finish, tangy and comforting in
the space of microseconds. This 6-percenter is supremely refined, a
brown that is bright and cheerful at a pleasant pace with due respect
to the somber chemistry of malts. Citra hops (only available since
2008) can be sharp (or too light) but they are finely graded here.
Citra makes things luminous-fruity more than flowery, medicinal, or
bitter. And what a better place to get luminous and fruity than...never
mind. Brekles is quite an impressive, individual accomplishment, taking
the style to new places, not for being novel alone, but reaching a
valuable transformation. This brew has value, true value for education
of genuine beer lovers - as well as brewers everywhere who should
reconsider their own boring brown ales. There are sure to be 79 copies
of this in the works. Here is an extraordinary liquid statement and one
both fascinating and quenching of all good malt desires. Hopheads can
adore it too and treasure it's focused, monovarietal purity. My final
word is...resplendent. Award of Merit 2012.
De Dolle Bos Keun Speciaal Paasbier
RATING: 5.0 (Award of Merit 2012)
Belgium
The
pour is dark yellow to mid-gold, the head fluffy, very aggressive, with
small off-white bubbles and lace lasting for minutes. There a crazy
brown, buck-toothed rabbit-like cartoon beast on the label for no
apparent reason - other than strange fun. But on more research we found
that Boskeun means "rabbit of the wood" and so our happy, hoppy,
hopping, furry ale-swilling friend now makes more sense - maybe.
Paasbier means Easter beer and it showed up in Raleigh NC in March
2012. It is spiced for certain, lightly at first, very somber-malty and
cloyingly rich for such a pale-colored beer. The ethanol club is
evident from at least the second sip onward. You might close your eyes
and imagine it a brown, double Belgian. We are told it was one of the
first Easter or Passbiers from Belgian, Slaghmuylder's Paasbier (though
just 6% ABV and also more lager-based) being the first of the style to
get marketed by most reports. The thick, rich nature comes in part from
cane sugar used for bottle refermentation. Pale malts and Golding hops
are used.
The
nose is of quality Belgian yeast, floral notes (not much from hops) and
rich malts with honey and grain come next. Fruit (of yeast not hops) is
dreamy, modest to medium bore, more bold in the occasional passage, and
something of a pome (apple-pear) blend, balanced to absolute estery
perfection. The balance of sweetness, quality sugars, fruit, and
grainy-malt density notes is remarkable. The lingering finish is that
of mild spice, pepper to some, but I your editor do not find anything
so overt as pepper. The head has high-overflow risk so be careful at
all temps. Not one drop of this glorious fluid should be missed.
Boskeun is a truly remarkable, slow-sipping beer, made by saavy
brewmasters, providing a virtuoso performance like nothing else. Amazing PLUS unique are
requirements for our Award of Merit and Bos Keun hopped away with
facile speed and furry finesse toward that certain conclusion. There
are few brews of any style and origin as satisfying as Boskeun. Some of
you may grill me for saying this brew might be or should be an
apocalyptic experience. I will emphatically say that Boskeun will fall
somewhere between highly informative and orgasmically transforming in
your pilgrimage to comprehend all that is beer. I would drive for hours
to obtain a bottle or chase down one short sip. I would crawl down a
dozen rabbit holes and fight off rabid beasts and venomous snakes below
the Belgian woodland soils if I knew they had some. Buy it online if
you must. Get one or ten in all cases as if your very beer life and
future expertise requires it - for it surely does.
Uinta Dubhe Imperial Black IPA
RATING: 5.0
Salt Lake City, Utah
While
their forementioned Detour Double IPA came in corked bottles, this
label came to us as four 12 oz. bottles for $9.99 (February 2012). This
offering is 9.2% ABV, flowing as a semi-transparent, dark brown with a
lasting yellowish-cream head. It is also brewed with hemp seed so I
hope my boss doesn't hand me a little plastic cup with lid tomorrow.
Actually hemp and it's seed lacks the THC or buzz-chemistry of
you-know-what. While on the topic of things high and far-out, Dubhe is
the Utah State Star (aka Alpha Ursae Majoris)
in the Great Bear constellation in front of the Big Dipper near the
bowl....not that kind of bowl. And would you know it? Dubhe is
pronounced quite conveniently as DOO-bee, another name for hemp's
outlaw half-brothers wrapped in paper. The bros sang of Black Water
makin' everything all right. Keep on shinin'n. Come dance with this
pretty mama all night long.
The
malts are shockingly efficacious for an IPA, loaded with toasted,
roasted, semi-choco, and licorice flavors, the hops and hemp bringing
up the rear with some sophisticated but sturdy notes; all of them
pleasant and glorious. This is a malt-addict's IPA and one a hopaholic
can share with them. I recommend a twelve step program or three 4-packs
to verify your addiction and serve as a pre-screening tool. This
forceful, dark IPA is not so much smooth as tastefully bold, powerful,
never crude, surely herbal-malty on the IPA spectrum. Here the hemp
seed proves it merit to give sharp differentiation in the recently
trendy DIPA market. Alpha Ursae Majoris here
is actor bear Gentle Ben, formidable and rare, approachable within
limits, and sure to impress and give awe as the finest of it's species.
Award of Merit 2012.
Mikkeller Santa's Little Helper (2011)
RATING: 5.0
Orbaek, Denmark
Though dark as a stout, this holiday treat is based on a Belgian style broadly in the Belgian Strong Ale
family. The head is light brown, not a tan either, a flavor notes
overflowing in spice and quality malts. The finish is semi-dry.
Reviewers on our panel proclaimed "love it...there is no better
Christmas ale of any name or style" and "love it...perfect+++...a
malty-spice feast.". One might even consider it a spiced barleywine,
giving the potency of ingredients and ethanol. Others felt is tasted
like an Imperial porter blended to a richly spiced Belgian Trippel.
Despite being an enigma, this is a coordinated brew and harmonious
recipe, full and rewarding in every single sip. Here is a yummy winter
treat; a warmer above the usual warming session brews. While reviewers
on other sites thought it too sweet, not one party here did, and found
it spectacular and flawless down to the last detail. This is an
exquisite, carefully refined formula together with a exacting execution
in the kettle room. Sir Kringle has never been helped so well.
Previous Award of Merit winners include:
- Allagash Curieux Ale
- Bear Republic Hop Rod Rye
- BrewDog Mikkeller Devine Rebel (2009, 2010)
- BrewDog Paradox Isle of Arran Stout
- BrewDog Paradox McAllan Imperial Stout
- Brooklyn Sorachi Ace Ale
- Clipper City Heavy Seas Mutiny Fleet Barleywine Style Ale
- Clipper City Heavy Seas Mutiny Fleet Siren Noire Imperial Chocolate Stout
- Dogdish Head Burton Baton Imperial IPA
- Dogfish Head Olde School Barleywine Style Ale
- Dogfish Head Pale Santo Marron Brown Ale
- Founder's Breakfast Stout
- Fuller's 2009 Bottle Conditioned Vintage Ale
- Gordash Holy Mackeral Mack In Black Imperiakl Black Ale
- Harpoon Ginger Wheat
- Harviestoun Ola Dubh Special Reserve 16 Ale
- Lagunitas Our Own Bavarian-Styled Doppel Weizen
- Lagunitas Wilco Tango Foxtrot
- Laughing Dog Devil Dog Imperial IPA
- Magic Hot Roxy Rolles Hoppy Amber Ale
- Mercury Clown Shoes Hoppy Feet 1.5 Double Black IPA
- Mikkeller Nelson Sauvin Single Hop IPA
- Nebraska Melange A Trois Belgian Style Ale
- New Holland Black Hatter IPA
- Olde Hickory Death by Hops IPA'
- Porterhouse XXXX Wrasslers Full Stout
- Red Hook 8-4-1 Expedition Ale
- Red Oak Amber Lager
- Samuel Adams Noble Pils
- Schmaltz He'brew R.I.P.A (Rye Double India Pale Ale)
- Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary Fritz and Ken's Ale Stout
- Stone 14 (14th Anniversary) Imperial IPA
- Stoudt's Heifer-in-Wheat Bavarian Style Hefeweizen
- Sünner Kolsch
- Thirsty Dog Siberian Night Imperial Stout
- Weyerbacher TINY Belgian-style Imperial Stout
- Widner Brothers Pitch Black IPA
Please visit our main site for their specific reviews.
Copyright 2012. Larry Hatch. All Rights Reserved.